I've been college searching for a while now, and have found two types of schools - reaches and matches. I am from upstate NY, have a 3.7 GPA, 1340 SATs (will improve), and great ECs/recs.

My reaches are Tufts, Haverford, Cornell, Davidson.

My safeties are SUNY Albany and SUNY Geneseo.

Would anyone be willing to suggest matches for me? I'm liberal but not a whacko (I guess a liberal Democrat) and looking for diversity, preferably a suburban or urban setting, anywhere on the East Coast. Looking to major in political science or international relations.

Washington & Jefferson outside of Pittsburgh has good political science. I have a friend going there. It's a nice, relativey small, school.

Allegheny College, which is south of Erie is another good political science school, though it's fairly conservative.

Dickinson College, you might want to look into that, as well as Franklin & Marshall. Sorry that they're all PA schools, but that tends to be what I know best. All of the schools I named are fairly small, but pretty reputable for your scores.

For larger schools, have you thought about any of the DC schools? You might think about Georgetown, American, and George Washington. Those would also give you some great opportunities for internship in your fields.

NYU, Boston U, George Washington U,Wm & Mary, Lafeyette College, Wake Forest, University of Richmond, Union College, Carnegie Mellon U (School of HS&S), Johns Hopkins University (always looking for non premeds), Gettysburg College,, Bucknell, Emory, Tulane, Fordham, Lehigh,Penn State, U of MD, U of Pittsburgh,Another great school but hard to get in and on the west coast is Claremont McKenna College and USc. I always felt the match was the hardest to pick since it's hard to say what schools are doing any given year. You look like you have a great start in picking schools already. Both Albany and Geneseo are good match/safety schools for you.

Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Washington and Lee (more suburban/rural, as is W&M), second the nomination of Georgetown, GW, and American.. what about James Madison? The NESCAC schools are always excellent and many have been mentioned already (Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Conn. College, Colgate, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams, and one other I can't remember) though they tend to be suburban/rural.